


Color Rests in Night

by viascos



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viascos/pseuds/viascos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a quiet moment, Akashi meditates on what little he remembers of his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Color Rests in Night

_Don't worry now it's all come back,_  
_Color rests in night._  
_You'll be there, you'll see her face,_  
_And hear her all the while._

-

On the days the big house is empty, Seijuurou moves up and down the cavernous halls that are richly furnished with the spoils of his father's travels. Silence hangs there like storm clouds, overbearing and making the air difficult to breathe. To an outsider, they are far too quiet, far too cold, but this is the home he is accustomed to and the halls are the veins on the back of his hand.

He always ends up in the same spot. It is forbidden, but he knows how to cover his tracks. His father is observant, but his father is not Seijuurou and mere observation pales in comparison to what the younger Akashi is capable of. More importantly, his father is not home.

His mother’s vanity, tucked in the corner of the master bedroom, was a gift acquired during one of his father’s many trips to the Western world before Seijuurou was born. Left untouched, it is a shrine of sorts, with sparkling necklaces hung from the wide mirror and make-up brushes, combs and trinkets spread deliberately on the gilded countertop. Some days he’ll lift and examine them carefully but now he only lowers onto the seat and notices at a glance in the mirror that his shoulders slope just a fraction more than the last time he’s seen himself.

There are photographs, naturally, but he relies on much more than just his sense of sight, and when he’s holding an image printed on thin paper or trapped in a frame there is little to deduce other than the sheen of protective glass or the lifeless weight between his fingers. The color of her hair, perhaps, so like his own, but nothing of her voice, the scent of her, whether or not she threw her head back when she laughed or bit at her lip when nervous or arched an eyebrow when annoyed, so he cannot truly know her.

 _And never will_ , is the thought that sinks its claws into his lungs and constricts until he lays the frames in their place and shuts his eyes against the light reflected in the mirror from the far window, left slightly open to let in air. After three measured heartbeats he can breathe again.  
  
What is worse, Seijuurou can't call up too many flesh and blood memories either. Those he does have filed away, he runs over and over more than he would like to admit to anyone. The accident that robbed her of her life and the family of her presence happened a long time ago, before he knew that everything counted on his mind. Entire afternoons spent with clenched teeth and hooded eyes, dredging through the informational input that grows muddled and darker the farther back he pushes. Nothing is forgotten, what enters is processed, quantified and tucked away, another infinity of information to rest on top of the others each and every day. Nothing forgotten, but so much buried, lost. Pining for the past means nothing and in the mind trained for precision and decisiveness he knows this, but in the same mind there are image-less flashes of warmth and the overwhelming sense of belonging here in the space she once occupied.

If he tilts his head, his reflection shows the left half of his face in shadow. He can almost pretend it’s the one he used to see in the mirror not long ago, or the softer face smiling up from the frames set in a neat half-circle not inches away and unaware of time’s passage he’ll sit, allowing everything to blur until the sunlight creeps lower to flood the window and his vision. It only takes a little gleam and the illusion shatters.

It’s only then, under the cold gaze that he sometimes has to remind himself is his own and out of the disjointed memories that play like film reels with frames cut out, one plays true, behind the sockets of his skull and in his ears.

_Darling, you have my eyes._

 

**Author's Note:**

> title and lyrics from "the grey man" by copeland


End file.
